Large anatomic pathology laboratories may receive hundreds of specimens each day. For example, the slides can be blocks of paraffin embedded tissue. The laboratories can prepare thousands of slides from those blocks. Any slide that becomes misidentified creates a potential for misdiagnosis.
The original sample received by the lab, referred to herein as “the block” is used to create new samples. Hence, the tracking system takes into account the parent-child relationship among the samples.
Because any misidentification can cause a misdiagnosis, pathology laboratories must take great care in labeling the slides. Typically this is done at the time the block is sectioned to make the slides. However, many devices used in the laboratory, such as autostainers, require special codes, e.g., barcodes to work with a slide. Because of this, it may be necessary to re-barcode the slides several times over the course of the workflow.